Anders Breivik was victim of 'blood diamond' scam

Norwegian killer Anders Behring Breivik transferred nearly $5,000 into a Liberian man's bank account and spent another $13,000 travelling to Liberia and buying equipment, after falling for what appears to be an elaborate blood diamond scam.

Breivik's lawyer Geir Lippestad pointed out that the investigators had failed to track down Mr Kallon, investigate all of the more than 8,000 contacts to whom Breivik emailed his manifesto, or discover anything about Breivik's visit to London in May 2001Photo: AFP

Asked whether the 33-year-old extremist had fallen for a "Nigerian internet scam", Prosecutor Svein Holden said that this was what he believed.

Breivik maintains that he visited the troubled African country in May 2001 to attend a terror training course and meet a "Serbian crusader and war hero", who he then represented at the founding meeting of the Knights Templar in London, on 30 May 2001, directly after Liberia trip.

Mr Sather said that police believe this meeting is a fantasy constructed by Breivik later, perhaps after 2006, when he appears to have undergone some kind of breakdown.

"We find nothing that can substantiate that Knights Templar exist in the form that Breivik said, and we believe that there are other motives for his journeys," he said.

"What I wrote in the compendium is correct, and regardless of what the police concludes, this will be proved," he said. "Within one year and three months this will be proved because then we will see another attack." He said that he had bought a raw diamond and diamond industry equipment in order to corroborate his cover.

Mr Sather showed how on March 31, a month after his trip to Liberia, Breivik transferred $500 to the account of Alpha Kallon, a Liberian man who is believed to now live in the USA, and then two weeks later transferred a further $4,400.

He also detailed the calls Breivik made to diamond dealers in the UK and US both before and after his trip.

His "closest friend" told the court that he had given 10,000 Norwegian Kroner ($1,650 in today's money) to Breivik to procure blood diamonds.

Mr Sather said police believed it was unlikely that Breivik would lose his best friend's money, even to create a cover.

Breivik's lawyer Geir Lippestad pointed out that the investigators had failed to track down Mr Kallon, investigate all of the more than 8,000 contacts to whom Breivik emailed his manifesto, or discover anything about Breivik's visit to London in May 2001.

"Four people meet up secret place, using secret names to discuss the grounding of an organisation ten years ago," he said of the visit, pointing out that the UK and Norway would have to have highly sophisticated intelligence services to prove that such a meeting did not take place.

"We cannot exclude that he met a Serb in Liberia, or that he met people who shared his opinions in London," Sather conceded.

The only data Sather presented was receipts from his visits to branches of Caffe Italia, and the Goose and Granite pub chain.